The Keeper

by Natasha Mostert

  He dropped his head and stared at her slyly through his lashes: ‘Sweetpea. If I win, I get Sweetpea.’

  Her heart lurched.

  ‘What?’ he jeered. ‘Are you chicken?’ He added one withering word: ‘Girls!’

  A strong mental offensive required a strong mental response: that was what Chilli had taught her. Before the first blow was struck, the battle was already won or lost. ‘Unbalance the chi of your opponent, Mia. Reach out with your mind. Seme. If the mind is right, the sword is right.’ She was only ten years old when he first taught her that, sitting cross-legged opposite him in the disciplined environment of the dojo. His words had a satisfying heft to them but she did not really understand: they were only words. But out here, in the hot street with Valentine watching her with alert eyes, she suddenly understood completely.

  ‘Sure.’ She shrugged, her body language deliberately languid; her eyes meeting the burning energy of his gaze with indifference. ‘And if I win, I get the bike.’

  Valentine’s eyebrows snapped together. The bicycle had been his birthday present. It was a proper racing bike with six gears and Valentine had painted the handlebars in post-box red. On the crossbar he had painted the words ‘First luv’.

  ‘OK.’ But for the first time there was a slight hesitation to his voice.

  Neither she nor Valentine had even considered asking Davie if he wanted to take part in the contest. Not that he had minded. Davie was a gentle soul.

  ‘Twice round the block.’ Valentine pointed to the far end of the street. ‘Quickest time wins. Davie will keep time. He’s neutral.’

  ‘I wouldn’t cheat, Valentine.’

  ‘No, but I might.’ That cheeky smile of his. He gestured at the bike. ‘You ready?’

  The saddle had been too high off the ground for her, she remembered that well. And it was hard and painful. The bike wobbled under her hands.

  But then she got going and the speed grabbed her like a vice. The first part of the course was downhill. Down, down past the hairdresser, where Nick’s mum usually stood with pins in her mouth and a hairdryer in her hands, but the shop now closed on a Sunday. Down, down past Davie’s dad’s corner shop—open but quiet. Down past the launderette and the post office. Her legs pedalled furiously, ecstatically. The wind rushed past her face. She could do this. She could beat him. But stronger, far stronger, than the driving spur of wanting to win had been the happiness of that moment. Life could not be more intensely lived than this. No thought. Only sensation.

  And then came the sharp turn into the next stretch of road and suddenly she was on top of a parked Volvo that was hugging the pavement. She had time to register the Garfield puppet with its suckered feet clinging to the back window of the car, but no time to turn the handles, no time to correct her course. The bike slammed into the rear end of the car and her hands jerked loose from the handlebars. She was catapulting through the air, head over heels—flying—the adrenalin gushing through her body and her brain crystal clear.

  Blood. That was what she remembered best. Not the pain, but the blood. How bright red the blood was and how much of it. She had broken her nose and there was blood everywhere.

  Valentine’s white face. ‘Mia, Mia. Are you all right, Mia?’ And then Valentine’s mother, big Mrs Scott, had arrived on the scene and slapped her son against the head. ‘Shame on you, Valentine Scott. What were you thinking? Little boys should protect little girls.’

  No, little girls should protect little boys…

  Why hadn’t Valentine told her he was coming out of retirement? He had always been meticulous about telling her of his upcoming fights. Something—or someone—must have stopped him. And now he was dead.

  ‘Mia? Are you all right?’

  ‘What?’ Mia looked at Lisa. For a moment she felt intensely disorientated.

  ‘What’s wrong, girl?’ Lisa looked at her curiously.

  ‘Sorry.’ Mia touched her forehead. ‘I was thinking of something else.’

  She and Lisa were sitting on the steps outside the door of the studio, taking their first break after a hectic morning. Summer was always their busy time. When people were shivering and wearing thermal underwear, body art was not high on their to-do list. But skimpy outfits and exposed skin made them feel sexy and the number of drop-ins at the studio rose dramatically in July and August. In the summer months she and Lisa started at nine, instead of noon, and Fridays and Saturdays they kept the shop open until midnight.

  ‘That guy’—Lisa jerked her chin in the direction of a group of builders on the opposite side of the street. ‘Do you think he knows I’m checking him out?’ As Lisa spoke, one of the men, dressed in jeans and a vest, glanced at them before picking up a bag with rather more flexing of muscles than was necessary.

  ‘He’s dishy. Looks like he can sling you over his shoulder and drag you to his cave, no problem.’ Lisa’s fantasies were pretty straightforward. Feminism was not high on her list of priorities either, but she did believe in taking the initiative. ‘Maybe I should walk over and say hello. What do you think?’

  Mia shook her head. ‘Have fun. I’m going inside.’

  She needed to finish two designs: a his and hers for two of her regular clients. Tiger for him, lotus flower for her. She pulled out the sketches and looked at her work critically. The flower was just about done, but she wasn’t happy with the tiger. She picked up a pencil and started drawing the tiger’s stripes.

  It was not much cooler inside the studio than outside, despite the efforts of the ceiling fan turning above her head. She sometimes considered replacing the old-fashioned Casablanca fan with air conditioning but then always decided against it. Her father had installed that fan with his own hands and she had too many memories of Molly working on hot nights to its soft revolving swish, the shadow blades moving gracefully across the walls.

  And that night when Molly told her it was time for her, Mia, to receive her first tattoo, the fan had been moving as well. She had tried to concentrate on the spinning circle above her head as the needles entered her skin and the pain—more intense than she had imagined—made her nerves sing. And she remembered how sharp the light was that came from the long-armed anglepoise lamp Molly used for night work. It had blotted out the colour of her mother’s face, even as it highlighted the tiny beads of sweat pearling along her hairline and the long white fingers gripping Angelique with delicate strength.

  The tattoo was Mia’s eighteenth-birthday gift. And that was the way Mia always thought of it: a gift. It was the word her mother had used as well, that night when she had inked the delicate figure indelibly into her daughter’s skin.

  ‘The lady is a special gift, Mia. She confirms your identity: who you are. I give her to you today, just as my mother gave me my Keeper and her mother hers. And so forth and so forth. A long line of women.’ It was then that Mia became scared, in that room filled with brightest light and deepest shadow and the ceiling fan turning above her head like a demented moth.

  A special gift…

  The tip of the pencil broke and a line streaked across the page, marring the outline of the tiger’s claw. At that moment, there was a movement at the door and she looked up quickly. But it was only Lisa, flushed from her encounter with her buff builder.

  ‘He’s asked me out on a date, tonight. Is that OK, Mia? I know we decided that I’ll do tonight’s shift, but can we switch?’

  ‘I have a class with Chilli tonight, Lisa.’

  ‘Please, pretty please? You know what I always say: strike while the iron’s hot. And tonight is the only night Rufus has free.’

  ‘Rufus?’

  ‘Hey, you once went out with a guy called Conan. Come on, girl, be a friend.’

  ‘All right. But you owe me.’ Mia reached for her handbag. ‘You can start with keeping an eye on the studio. I have to go to the bank.’

  Inside the bank it was blessedly cool but the queue at the cash machine was long. In front of Mia was a man who had a tattoo creeping up from underneath his
shirt into his neck. Mia studied it critically as she slowly shuffled towards the cashpoint. The tattoo was clearly the work of an unskilled scratcher who had exercised poor control of his machine. Some lines were patchy where the gun had skipped, but there were also lines where the gun had bitten too deeply, leaving deep scarring.

  She was still looking at the tattoo, her thoughts distracted, when her mind suddenly snapped to alert.

  Someone was watching her.

  Mia turned her head slowly, her eyes scanning the queue of people behind her, but no one was paying her attention. Neither was anyone in the group of people at the front of the bank where the tellers were. Most of the faces seemed irritable or bored and not particularly focused. But she knew she wasn’t wrong. And it wasn’t just casual interest she was picking up; someone close by was directing his energy towards her with great intent. She could feel it against her skin, an icy electric current.

  One of the goals of martial-arts training was to develop a highly developed sense of your opponent’s intentions. It wasn’t just a case of reading non-verbal clues—posture, breathing, dilation of pupils—it came from a deeper source. It was the ability to gauge your opponent’s chi—his inner vital energy—before the first blow was struck. A highly skilled practitioner could pick up the energy vibrations bleeding off his opponent without that person even being within sight. Martial artists called it haragei. The average guy who lacked training in chi sensitivity and who did not have a lexicon of fancy Japanese terms at his disposal might talk about feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise or someone walking over his grave. Whichever way you wished to describe it, it was an actual physical sensation and Mia was feeling it now.

  Who was it? Not the youth with the canvas jacket impatiently slapping a rolled-up newspaper against his leg; not the older, distinguished-looking man in a charcoal suit… certainly not the woman with the fractious baby, even though she kept throwing glances in Mia’s direction.

  ‘You’re next.’ The blonde girl behind her, tired-looking with shadows under her eyes, tapped Mia on the arm and gestured at the cash machine beyond.

  Mia mumbled an apology. She tried focusing on typing in her PIN but it was difficult to concentrate. The energy in the room was spiky, disturbed. As she waited for the machine to spit out the money, she looked round her again but could not identify the source.

  And then it was gone.

  Mia breathed deeply, surprised to find herself feeling slightly light-headed. She waited impatiently for the transaction invoice to print. All she wanted now was to get out of here.

  Outside the sun had disappeared. Thick clouds moved across the sky and the wind had sprung up. Mia decided to take a short cut through a deserted garden square that was hemmed in on all sides by looming Victorian buildings. The many trees threw long shadows. The single wooden bench looked uninviting.

  A sudden thought made her pause. Had she collected her debit card before storming out of the bank? Better to make sure. At the bench she stopped and placed her handbag on the seat. As her hand rummaged for her wallet, she looked up at the red-brick mansion flats facing her with their many staring windows.

  The debit card was where it should be. But as she picked up her handbag, there it was again: the same sense of being watched. It was real and unpleasant. And this time she knew exactly where it was coming from.

  She spun around and looked to where a man was standing at the far corner of the square. He was carrying an open umbrella and his face was in deep shadow: she could not even make out the colour of his hair. His body was relaxed, one hand pushed deep into his jacket pocket.

  Months later, she would look back on this moment and remember. She would remember the way in which a curtain had flapped from one of the windows on the ground floor in a strange, slow-motion movement as though time was winding down. She would remember the sick feeling that had settled on her chest. She would remember that this was the first time the thought of her own death had come to her mind.

  A drop of rain fell on her face. Another. And then the heavens opened and sheets of rain came pouring down. Within seconds she was soaked, her hair plastered to her head. Mia brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and blinked. When she looked again, the figure was no longer there.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE BOOK OF LIGHT AND DUST

  FOR ROSALIA

  XXX

  Today I watched you. Stranger, who I know.

  I know your faithful heart. I know what moves you; how deeply you can love.

  Warrior woman; loyal healer. You hunt, you defend, you carry in the chambers of your mind the songs and legends, the wisdom of your sisters.

  I am curious of your ways.

  Gifted innocent: you touch the great energy easily, carelessly. You need not steal to hold it in your hand.

  Let me come to your window…

  THE WAY: JADE PILLOW

  BLACKLIGHT: DIR: CV3 LV8, FRC: 1, TIME: 12, SUs: ST8

  WHITELIGHT: GB23

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The window on the top floor was open but the narrow terraced house on the other side of the street showed no light. The heavy downpour of rain that had swept through London earlier in the day had changed to a thin but steady drizzle. The moisture in the air made the glow from the streetlights appear as gauzy and mysterious as a picture-book illustration.

  The man sheltering in the doorway blinked as a flight of pale moths hovered before his eyes. Then the moths disappeared, ghost-like, into the shadows.

  Nothing else stirred. The street was empty and the windows of the houses dark. At the far end of the terrace was the high street: glazed light, the swoosh of wet tyres and the night noises of the city. Here, it was quiet.

  He pushed his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the slip of paper with her name. The words were written in big looping letters and looked self-conscious, as though the writer had been striving to conform to some ideal standard of penmanship.

  For a moment he looked at the piece of paper in his hand unseeingly, his mind flashing back to that day, not so long ago, when he had watched Valentine write this note for him.

  ‘Mia Lockhart. The Mystic Ink studio.’ Valentine was frowning in concentration, the pen in his hand moving slowly across the paper. ‘You go and see Mia and she’ll see you right. Best tat artist around, man. Tell her I sent you.’ Valentine handed him the piece of paper and smiled, teeth white against his swarthy skin.

  He smiled back, all the while knowing the man in front of him had been marked by death. Although at that moment Valentine was looking like someone at the peak of physical fitness. They had just finished a last three-round sparring session together: two rounds of striking and one round of grappling. A light workout because, the day after, Valentine would step into the ring and he needed to be fresh.

  Valentine stuffed his gloves and shinpads into his gym bag and swung it over his shoulder. ‘I owe you, man.’ Valentine suddenly seemed almost emotional. ‘You really helped me these past few weeks. You’ve been a great training buddy.’

  ‘A pleasure. It’s been fun.’

  ‘You’re coming to my fight, right?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Great.’ Valentine smiled. ‘See you then.’

  He watched as Valentine walked out of the door, knowing it would be the last time he would see the man alive. And despite his promise, he never made it to the fight. The fight held no interest for him. His attention had already moved on.

  Mia. The Keeper. He would get to know all her secrets.

  The memory of Valentine faded from his mind and he slipped the piece of paper back into his pocket. Time to move on. Valentine belonged to the past.

  Once more he looked up at the open window on the top floor of the house opposite. He wondered if it was her bedroom. From lying in wait earlier today, he already knew that the windows next to that solid front door led to the studio. They were heavily shuttered. But downstairs, in the basement, the curtains did not qui
te meet behind the closed windows. He would be able to look inside.

  He crossed the street and turned up his collar against the rain. The steps leading down from street to basement level were slick and the soles of his shoes slipped. He grabbed at the railing to steady himself and in the process pushed over a dustbin, unleashing a clatter of rolling metal.

  He froze. But the house remained dark and quiet.

  Carefully he continued down the steps and crossed the small courtyard. He placed his fingers against the cold pane of glass and peered into the darkness inside.

  After a while his eyes could make out shapes and forms. A kitchen table with a checked cloth stood underneath the window. Against the far wall was a stove. Pans and spatulas were hanging from steel hooks set into the wall. Potted plants were arranged on the kitchen sink. There was a dresser too, filled with ornamental plates, and he could make out the rectangular shapes of picture frames. But the images inside the frames had no definition, the gloom inside the room too deep for him to see.

  He stepped back, feeling dissatisfied. Looking up at the open window on the top floor, he wondered again, was she inside, sleeping? In his mind’s eye he pictured her body against pale sheets; tousled hair, a slender hand resting on the pillow, the palm open and vulnerable.

  The idea of her made him short of breath. After following her around earlier today, he now knew the shape of her face, but he was not yet sure of the colour of her eyes. But they had a bond, the two of them. When she had stared at him across that garden square filled with wind and shadows, it had felt as real as the touch of fingers on his skin.

  But he would have to be more careful: her sense of haragei was highly developed. If he did not want to scare her off, he would have to rely on kobudera, the masking of true intent. Seduce her, charm her with beauty. And then, take from her the prize.